What is the Jackson Hole symposium?

The Jackson Hole economic symposium is an annual gathering of the world’s leading central bankers in the Grand Teton mountain region of Wyoming.

The meeting has been hosted since 1978 by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, which chooses a topic for the event. Policymakers and economists present papers and hold discussions relating to that theme. The idea is to allow attendees to explore broad issues of monetary policy, but the specific issues of the day are often addressed in speeches.

The event is held over three days in late August, kicking off on Thursday evening and closing on Saturday afternoon.

Wall Street is agog for two reasons. Firstly the recent economic news from the world’s biggest economy has been pretty good. Secondly Yellen’s No 2 at the Fed, Stanley Fischer, made some hawkish comments at the weekend which left a clear impression that an increase in borrowing costs this year remained on the agenda.

Predictably the idea that the Fed is contemplating a rate rise while all the other major central banks are looking to provide more stimulus led to a stronger US dollar and weaker commodity prices.

But, as Wall Street should not need to be reminded, we have been here before. At the start of the year there was speculation that there would be four increases in interest rates during the course of 2016. So far there have been none. The Fed has given strong signals that interest rates are going up only to back away again in the face of downbeat economic data.

Three possible dates have been pencilled in by the markets for a Fed move: September, December and March next year. September will be a non-starter unless Yellen comes up with some uncharacteristically tough and unequivocal words in Jackson Hole. She is is an instinctive dove, doesn’t especially want to see the dollar appreciate rapidly is and politically smart to boot. A September rate rise would come smack in the middle of the presidential election race.

It is more probable that the choice is between December and March. The recent data points to December. The Fed’s recent actions point to March.